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Which State Has the Best K-12 Public Education School System?

Which states are doing the best job in maintaining strong public school systems?

According to data compiled by SmartAsset, a technology and data company, good schools are in the northeast, and the west can do better.

In order to find this data, "SmartAsset looked at ten across-the-board metrics of education, placing a special emphasis on how well states are preparing students for college," the article said. For each state, we considered the percentages of students taking the SAT, ACT and AP tests, and the average scores for those tests. We also looked at the state-level funding-per-student, the student-teacher ratio, the high school dropout rate and the percentage of high school graduates attending college after graduation [read more about our methodology below]."

One of its key findings was that good schools are in the northeast."

"Led by Connecticut, each of the top four states in our study is located in the northeast, and seven of the top ten are on the east coast," the article said. "Most notable among these states was the high rate of college-attendance. In New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut, over 70 percent of high school graduates attend college within 12 months of graduating."

SmartAsset also found that "the west can do better."

"The west is home to all four of the lowest-grading states in our study, and six of the eight states that received an overall F are west of the continental divide," the article said. "Washington, Arizona, Oregon and Nevada all have below average college-attendance rates, below average per-student spending levels and higher-than-average student-teacher ratios."

The article also ranked the states according to "SAT Testing Percent", "ACT Testing Percent", "College Attendance Rate", "Dropout Rate", "Funding per Student", "Student-Teacher Ratio", and "Grade". Connecticut made the top of the list with Nevada at the bottom.